White Picket Fence
by Rinaway
Summary: Fluff; Sookie and Eric try to make a baby. Told in an imitation of the SVM's voice. Sookie's 1st person POV between Dead in the Family and Dead Reckoning- they're still bonded, but Godric made Eric. So in that sense, this is AU. *On hiatus through June, 2013*
1. Chapter 1

**White****Picket****Fence,****Chapter****1:****"****Descendants****"****  
><strong>  
>"Jesus, honey, slow down."<p>

We were hurtling down the highway toward the nearest airport at over 70 miles an hour, well over the posted speed limit. My knuckles clenched the fine leather upholstery, and Eric, the honey thus referenced, took a moment to glance over at me, then grinned and focused back on the highway.

My vampire boyfriend was fond on taking risks. In his thousand years on Earth, I was sure he'd had to take many. I, however, in my own twenty eight had learned that it was better to take the more conservative route. People still got killed, but the consequences didn't always seem so drastic.

"There's a cop ahead." I could feel her mind, focused on scanning the horizon and also distantly wondering what her son was up to at school. It was one of the many 'joys' I had to look forward to on a daily basis as a telepath.

"Oh, Sookie, my own personal radar detector."

He let off the gas a bit, and my fingers relaxed. Casually, he let his hand drift over until it was covering mine- then let it begin to drift up my leg. Smooth.

A life that involved death and killing had become somewhat alarmingly par for the course in my otherwise unremarkable little side of Louisiana, in the recent years since vampires had 'come out of the closet.' In that time, I'd dated two vampires- but I hadn't left my home country, with or without one. But tonight, that was going to change.

It'd all started about three weeks back, when Eric had called me into his bedroom. He had his laptop at the bottom of his massive mattress, plugged into the closest outlet and he was stretched across the length of the comforter but still managed to take up the majority of the bed. As a towering Viking, he needed every inch of the King sized bed.

I heard him call me mentally, drawing me to him subconsciously, before I heard his voice, and I cursed our long-standing and unwittingly created blood bond. While there were times that I liked knowing his emotions, generally, it felt like just another intrusion, and it made me question our relationship as a whole.

Fortunately, Eric had as many issues as I did. Maybe that's why we enjoy each other's company so much.

I came around and sat down as close to the screen as I could manage, peering at what he'd called me in for. He brought one arm around me and continued typing and clicking as if I hadn't yet appeared. After a moment, he looked up at me.

"I've just gotten a very interesting email from a woman I –_consorted_- with about six years ago while visiting New York," he began.

He didn't have to explain any further than that- as far as I was aware, his relationship with me had been Eric's first attempt at monogamy in a long, long time. Possibly since his human death. Without pause, he continued.

"She is a geneticist and took an interest in a sample from me. I consented, once she yielded to me."

He waggled an eyebrow at me, and I tried my best to give the sour expression he seemed to expect, but jealousy doesn't suit me.

"It seems that they've located a number of my descendants, through one of my sons and my daughter."

The surprise must have shown on my face, because he smiled as I responded.

"You've got family? Eric, that must be-"

While he had his vampire child, Pam, I knew he also felt the same longing I'd had to know a bit more of his blood relations.

"Amazing, yes. I had always hoped that my children had survived the war that killed me, but the thought of them grown up with families of their own had always been one that I'd only entertained as a fantasy. Though I am nearly 40 generations back, evidently, a few of them- there are 16 total- are interested in getting to know me. They've organized an event in Germany, and would like me to attend."

"Wow, an Eric Northman convention. Now we'll have a really hard time keeping your feet tied to the ground." If there was one thing he didn't need, it was an ego boost. I was sure he was receiving one anyway. At least any pretty girls there would be his descendants, and thus icky for him to lust after. Not that he'd shown signs of lusting after anyone lately, but still, it was oddly reassuring.

"Will you come with me? I'd like you to meet them."

"I'll get the time off." I'd have to work some extra hours to pull a few days off in a row, but I was sure that Sam, my boss, wouldn't mind letting me away from his bar for such a special and unusual occasion.

And that brought us back to the airport.

Once Eric had safely stowed away his travel coffin and I'd picked a seat a few feet away, we settled in for the long, long flight overseas. Since we were departing at night, he and the other vampires would be able to keep the human passengers company until daybreak, when they'd have to hide from the sun. The stewardesses, their black uniforms carrying the golden jackal head of Anubis Airlines, came around to offer drinks and Truebloods to the passengers. As he poked through the paltry magazine selection, a question occurred to me.

"How did you go across the ocean before the Revelation?"

"With passengers, we stowed away on ships- though it was very dangerous. If I was by myself, I just went as far north as possible, then I flew."

"You flew to Europe? Under your own power?"

"I can glide for quite a distance. I needed to land periodically to feed, of course- usually on whales-" at this, he made a disgusted face, "and sometimes on unlucky whalers."

The mental images of Eric diving below the surface to snatch at a whale or sweeping out of the sky to drain an unlucky fletcher were more than slightly disturbing. I grimaced.

"So, you can see why I appreciate the services this company provides. And you wouldn't have enjoyed the experience otherwise." We settled into comfortable conversation until he had to slip into his resting spot, and then I pulled out a thick romance novel.

The flight was so long that for a while I was convinced that I'd unknowingly died and this was the flight to purgatory, or perhaps Hell- after all, Eric was with me- but finally, the captain announced that we were landing soon. As if he'd been personally summoned, Eric rose from the casket, stretching and looking not even remotely ruffled. I envied him; though I'd slept, my neck was aching and I felt like a needed a month-long shower from the stable cabin air. He took my arm with a feather-light touch and led me down the ramp into the quiet passenger area. There hadn't been any other commercial flights arriving at 2am, and the airport was dark and shuttered, the cafes with foreign wording closed up tight. I was thankful that my boyfriend spoke a dozen or more languages flawlessly; I couldn't begin to tell you what any of them sold based on the signs alone.

The meeting the next day was a happy time. Eric's descendants ranged from poor, blue-collar folks like me to some very wealthy people. They mixed and mingled somewhat awkwardly, wearing name badges and looking around for familiar facial features. As he greeted the various attendants, I hung back, only to be approached by a young man with hair the same exact shade as my own- and Eric's. He smiled at me brightly, reaching his arms out for a hug.

"Hello, hello," he said, his voice with a heavy British accent. "I'm Niles, Niles Hups. I see our resemblance straight off!"  
>I smiled back at him, sad to disappoint.<p>

"Actually, I'm Mr. Northman's girlfriend- Sookie Stackhouse. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hups."

"Oh! Well, our hair is certainly similar." We began an easy back and forth about how I'd met Eric and become involved with him. Then his cell phone went off, and he answered it with worry in his eyes. As he strode off with an apology, I felt a wave of despair come over him, and unwillingly lowered my shield only to discover that he had a teen daughter named Melissa dying of a mysterious ailment. As I listened with pity, my attention was drawn by a warmth coming ever-closer. Eric jostled me out of Nile's head as he touched my elbow and towed me off toward the hotel's lobby. I looked at him for an explanation.

"Have you heard something bad? I could feel your anxiety, so I came to find you. Your face is disturbed."

"Have you met Miles?" I answered his question with a question.

"Briefly. His hair-"

"Same color," I agreed. "He's got a daughter, Melissa. She's very ill, something they're afraid she caught from a bad meal. She's in the hospital and deteriorating."

"That's unfortunate." He had a tone to his voice that I recognized, but didn't particularly like. "Can you listen to him anymore?"

"Yes… why?"

"Just do it as a favor, please?" He bent down the foot or so to give me a quick kiss, though it tingled straight down to my toes and gave the girls in the room some flutters. Yuck. He was their ancestor!

I spent the next few hours enjoying the company of those assembled while Eric sat down and figured out with those present how everyone was related- and they were some jumbled webs indeed. There were people from Sweden, Austria, England, France, Germany, Switzerland- and one Australian, a hearty looking fellow named Zane who couldn't have looked less like Eric if there'd been a contest to find someone. Yet there was something in his confident swagger- I blinked and assured myself that I was being ridiculous.

Niles had gone up to his room and begun packing by the time I had Eric alone again. I explained that he planned on coming up to our room and asking if Eric would turn his daughter. I assumed he would refuse almost automatically, so I was shocked as hell by what came next.

"Hmm, perhaps. There is something I would like in return… if you are interested."

"What would I want from Niles?" Here, I was truly curious.

"Our child."

I could only stare at him in slack-jawed shock. Child?  
>The reality that we'd never have kids together was just one of those things I accepted as part of being a vampire's girlfriend- though technically, by vamp law, I was his wife. It wasn't physically or biologically possible for Eric to father children anymore, and it had been nice to not have to worry about birth control. Just another advantage of an undead suitor. But now he had some crazy scheme to…what, exactly?<p>

Everyone around me was having babies, or trying to, anyway. Several of my friends and coworkers had recently wanted children, and having a few running around my own yard had been a dream tucked away in the edges of my heart for a long time. But now? This way?

He reached for my wrist, letting my mind process. I could feel his own nudging mine, gauging my emotional state to see if he'd said something really stupid or really brilliant. In some ways, it was a bit of both.

"Niles comes from a very- _crowded_- branch of my family tree," he said, pulling out a complicated-looking chart. "My one son- impossible to know which, possibly it was both of them- had 4 sons and a daughter who lived and produced children- he had 26 grandchildren, of whom 5 intermarried. They also married into those descended from my daughter, Helga. I appear on his 'pedigree' about 40 times, total. While that's still just a fraction of a percent, if anyone's got the most of my DNA, it's him."

"You want me to have Nile's baby?" The thought of further diluting my own fae blood was surprisingly tempting, considering the trouble it had brought me.

"No, you're having **my** baby…in as direct a way as possible." He glanced down, pausing only briefly at my breasts, to settle his gaze on my stomach. I then realized that this was something he'd been thinking about and wanting for a while, and I hadn't missed his emphasis.

"And you're going to procure this sperm by offering to turn his daughter?" I asked, wondering if the man- or his wife- would go along with this crazy scheme.

"If my blood doesn't work, maybe cash will. Of course, he and his family would be generously compensated for his donation."

Unbidden, my mind flew to images of my child, blonde and blue-eyed, smiling in the sun, dancing in the dark in his arms, swept up into the air, his long hands reaching up to toss her higher and higher, their faces radiant. Her hair was our color; her eyes favored Gran's more than either of ours. The Stackhouse line would continue.

Then, predictably, he had to complicate it.

"Of course, you would also have to allow the child to make their own choice about being turned once they came of age, and that would be what I would prefer. Your faerie blood will prolong your life into something almost acceptable- but to watch our child wither and die-" He sounded stricken already. Hell.

Recently, we'd discovered that my own fairy ancestors were closer on my own family tree and appeared twice more than we'd thought. It turned out that my mother had been seduced by a fairy who had subsequently removed her memory, with myself as the product of that union. She'd never suspected, nor had my father, that he was raising a cuckoo's child alongside my brother. But it had explained why my brother- only 1/8th fairy- seemed to be aging normally and lacked the powers I possessed. And it also meant that I could expect to live for a good three or four hundred years, if I kept my head down and took care of myself.

"Let's cross that bridge when we come to it." It was assuming a whole hell of a lot that Niles would even be interested in our offer.

Seeing my acceptance, he pulled me to him and held me against his lithe, endless body for a long moment, and then we practiced making a baby as we had done so often before. Afterward, he lay his face between my hipbones and said something in another language. When I asked him what he'd said, he just gave an enigmatic grin and curled himself back around me, cradling my body against his for the few hours we had until dawn.


	2. Chapter 2

**White Picket Fence, Chapter 2: ****"****Made****"****  
><strong>  
>The next couple of weeks passed without word about Melissa from Niles, one way or the other. Eric had emailed him all of the details and we waited for his response, somewhat breathlessly. A day or two after our return I'd caught myself absently stroking a pink velvet crib set at Wal-Mart before I snapped myself back to reality. I saw Eric every few days and kept working a regular schedule at the bar, trying to focus on things other than my suddenly discovered, albeit slim, chance at motherhood.<p>

I was carrying out a plate of burgers balanced on my left hand with a Coke in the crook of my arm when suddenly I felt the warm flush I associated with Eric, and within five minutes he'd walked in the door. I felt tension in our bond and looked up into his eyes, and he made a motion to join him in the back. Sam gave a nod and we went into the boss's office.

"Niles replied," he said, not bothering to waste words or time.

"And?"

"His daughter's gotten about as far gone as she can go without being brain-dead. I've spoken to Pam about it, and she's decided to go ahead and become a Maker. She left for England about an hour ago."

Wow. I'd never thought Pam would see a human being worth turning, and this thought must've registered on my face. "She thinks that being the Maker of one of my descendants would be deliciously ironic. She's spoken to the family over the phone, and it helps that they're all English. I'm glad that she's taken this step in her own growth process. It makes me feel more secure about the risk of my ever leaving you or her. Besides, with a child of her own to deal with, she'll keep her nose out of ours for at least a decade."

"A _decade_?"

"Oh, the first years are the worst. Vampires call them 'the terrible ten'. They're a very trying time in the relationship for Maker and child. They know nothing and you must teach them everything- _everything_- and their utter dependence can be exhausting. And just by the time you've got them understanding directions and following orders, on a decent schedule- they start fretting at the reins and you need to set them free for another few dozen years. There's a reason I've only created one child in a thousand years. Pam has been an experience in and of herself."

I smiled, thinking of how true his statements were about human children as well. But then again, he'd never gotten to watch his children reach maturity. I mourned briefly for all he had missed, which was absurd enough considering it had all come to pass 30 generations before I was a sperm and an egg.

"Why did you make Pam, anyway?" I let my curiosity get the best of me.

"Godric decided to create a new child- Johanna. I was jealous. I'd stayed with him over three hundred years past when he'd officially released me, simply because I felt loyal to him and we enjoyed working together. But then one night he brings home a limp little ragdoll in his arms, her body broken and drained, and tells me that he has created a new child. I left him for fifty years, and by the time I saw him again, Pam was at my side."

"What happened to Johanna?"

"She was killed by a human. He found her resting place in his cellar, and staked her. Godric exacted his revenge swiftly."

As interesting as his past was, I had a even deeper question burning in my belly and half a dozen table's worth of tips being collected by another waitress, so I went ahead and changed subjects.

"So how are we going to do the uh... impregnation? Are you doing to make me a doctor's appointment?" I'd always kept up with my schedules on a little calendar Gran had taught me how to use, and I had a rough idea of when I ovulated every month. Luckily, my monthlies were always like clockwork from the very first one. I had a vague idea that there would be canisters, cold metal, pipettes, and waiting rooms involved, but I didn't find that I cared much. My heart was glowing. A baby! Even if I was as good as married to a vampire, I could still imagine my poor mother turning in her grave at her unwed, pregnant daughter, but I was still thrilled.

Eric's eyebrows shot up in incredulous surprise. He'd felt my happiness and an involuntary smile tugged at the corners of his fine lips. I didn't remember what Nigel's kisser looked like, but I hoped it looked like his, so the baby's would, too.

"My lover," he said, stepping into my personal space and gripping my arms with his own cool palms, "do you think I would have you inseminated like some dairy cow? No, no, no. We will determine your best day, then I'll have the sample shipped and we will find a way to get it inside of you as sensually as possible. We won't conceive our illegitimate love-child in a sterile lab." He made a face. "It's bad enough it's someone else's sperm. I wouldn't have you receive no pleasure from the experience whatsoever."

I closed the narrow distance between us and laid my head against his chest, feeling his arms cross around my back and lift me up off the tile floor. He held me above the earth for a few long moments, feeling my heart speed up, and then spun on the spot and rocketed out of the bar so quickly that I was sure we were a blur to the Thursday-night bar crowd. We hit the warm summer air and I gasped as we left the earth completely, keeping my eyes shut as the wind whipped around us. Within a minute, we'd touched back down and I saw we were in front of my house. I laughed, though I felt bad about abandoning my shift. Well, it had been a pretty slow night anyway…

"I'll bring your car back before dawn," he promised as he sat me down and yanked on my apron strings. I was already shrugging off my bar shirt while trying to unbutton his. We spent the rest of the night making love and talking, planning, dreaming.

I woke up around ten the next morning to find $60 under my sugar bowl and a note that said "Sorry about your tips, too."


	3. Chapter 3

**White Picket Fence, Chapter 3: ****"****Four****Rings****"****  
><strong>  
>Within the next week or so, we figured out my best fertile time was right around the third week of the following month, so Eric made the arrangements and started having me over his house even more than he had before. Before, I'd spent the night maybe once a week- but the coming union we had planned made us crave each other more than ever, and I spent three or four afternoons now on the road to Shreveport. Fortunately, I'd informed Sam of our plans and he'd given me a schedule of almost all lunch shifts. I guessed that was as close as I'd get to his blessing in this whole crazy scheme.<p>

Every time I entered Eric's estate I was struck by the beauty of it. The house itself was modern- I'd guess no more than fifty years- and it defied any stereotype one would have of a vampire's gloomy abode. From the outside, it was big and spacious, and two stories- like Gran's. The driveway and grounds were impeccably kept, and a covered carport extended out over the front of the house to cover a large section of the interlocking cobblestones. There were windows- sure, they opened onto rooms with painted-shut doors and very dusty furnishings- but they gave the house the appearance of a cozy southern vacation house. The inside shell of the house had no access to sunlight and three bedrooms, not counting the vault-like room that Eric used as his bedchamber. There was also a small kitchen and three bathrooms, each with a magnificent and over-sized bathtub. The furnishings were overwhelmingly white, brown, and pale blue and the artwork on the walls was predominantly photography. He liked to tell me what the photos were when we weren't busy with other things.

The sun was just going down as I parked under the overhang and stepped up to the solid steel door that framed the front of the house. To the left of the knob were a keypad and a small reader that I slipped my thumb into. With a half a dozen beeps, I typed my security code and let the device confirm my fingerprint. The door's locks clicked open and a rush of cold air greeted me as I stepped inside.

Eric was sitting on his pristine white sofa, his bare feet touching the thick brown fur rug that lay beneath it. A few weeks previous I'd asked him what kind of animal it had come from, and he'd told me it was the skins of four different bears he'd killed in the seventeenth century, carefully stitched together by a taxidermist in the 1920's. While Bill's house was filled with the old things he used to cling to his past, Eric's house breathed with hidden history that wasn't immediate to the naked eye.

He let me cross the room and then swung his legs over, stretching across the length of the couch and inviting me into his embrace. I was happy to comply, settling myself down and pressing my back into his chest. He let a possessive arm fall loosely around my waist, and threaded the scrunchie that was holding up my ponytail out of my hair, letting it fall free. He picked a strand up and began running it through his fingers, letting me enjoy my first real silent moments of the day. After a few minutes of bliss, I started the conversation.

"Has Pam turned Melissa yet?"

"Yes," he replied. "I felt it, last night, through my bond to her as her maker. It didn't quite weaken, but it was- how shall I say- diluted- when she in turn created a vampire. And now, distantly, I can feel Melissa's existence, the fact that she lives and moves. It's not like our bond, though, not even close."

Evidently he thought I might be jealous of anything that would supersede or impair our own bond. He was wrong, but I thought better of pointing that out to him. I even felt a tiny bubble of anxiety pop across the blood. How precious.

Apparently he felt my slight agitation, because he gave a tiny smirk and bent to kiss me. As usual, his incredibly fine-tuned kisser had an effective way of bringing my heart peace, and within a minute I was back to putty in his too-willing hands. Mentally grappling for control, I reined in my lust and turned back to talking.

"Tell me about the night you turned Pam," I said, figuring a long and meandering story would distract him. "I've heard her version, now I want to know yours."

"All right," he agreed, seeming resigned. "I was alone- Godric was busy with his new child- and wandering at night through London. I'd just fed and was looking for a good place to hide- it was about three hours before dawn- and while I was lifting up a cellar door, I heard a human moving, bustling through the bushes. I turned and came up behind her, grabbed her by the shoulder. I was so used to them screaming or fainting straight off, but before I could even glamour her, she looked me straight in the eye and told me to unhand her. I asked her name, and she told me it was Pamela."

There was a faraway look in his eye, and for once I wished I could see his memories as they played in his mind.

"I asked her if she wanted my name, and she said no, because she knew who I was. The devil. Because no man had ever looked the way I did." He genuinely smiled at that.

"So then what did you say?" I asked.

"I didn't say anything; I bit her. I loved her defiance; it was so unusual. Right from the get-go, she had fire and spirit and character, and even though I didn't know her, I wanted to keep her. It is said that a maker will recognize his child, see something in an ordinary human that compels them to make the choice to bring them over. I can say that was true for me, in Pam's instance."

Before I'd even quite known it was there, a sentence slipped from my lips, my voice small. "Have you seen that in me?"

"No," he replied honestly. "No, from the beginning I was drawn to you, yes, and I wanted to know you better, but it was selfishness in my mind that ever thought of turning you. And somehow, I guess, I knew that I couldn't keep you that way. Of course, now we won't need to worry about it. I'll meet the sun when you go, in a long long time."

The thought of Eric no longer existing was painful, even if we were speaking purely in theoretical terms long in the future.

"I don't like to think about that."

He ran a soothing finger down the line of my arm, and then kissed my shoulder.

"It's no crime, a life of 1,500 years. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but most vampires in our world barely make it to three hundred years before they meet the true death. It is only through luck and loyalty that I've attained my age, and if you had not been in my life, I would have gladly put my affairs in order and followed Godric into the next light. We grow careless or greedy with immortality. And a great many are depressed by watching just three or four generations of humans waste their lives before they are tempted to end their own."

"I can see why," I commented, and truly, I could. The tragedies I'd witnessed firsthand in the first half of a single lifetime, the utter waste, was depressing enough. Watching the families you'd known wither, die, make mistakes and triumphs- it had to be exhausting and soul-wearying. Just thinking about it- and knowing I had plenty of time left to consider the lives of my friends and neighbors as I shared the next few hundred years with Eric- had me feeling somewhat apprehensive.

But I couldn't change what I'd been born, any more than Eric could go back and stop Godric from turning him a thousand years ago. This was the life I'd been given, and the life I saw fit to pass onto another human being, an innocent, a child. Our child would be born of light and dark, with a father who could never walk in the sun and a mother who passed the days in darkness not from fear, but out of love. For the sake of love.

Oh, hell. I was getting entirely too maudlin (another great calendar word) about this entire business. How many kids did I know who'd been born because their mothers had wanted to trap a man, or needed another government check, or wanted a baby of another gender, or were plain 'oops's who had found themselves in existence for no particular reason at all? Our decision to bring a child into a life of relative ease and luxury wasn't exactly the least selfish thing we'd ever do, but at the same time, it wasn't terrible.

As if he could hear my mental resolve, he changed topics.

"So, speaking of our future child, whose name shall they bear? Yours, mine... ours...? Will you take my name, for the humans' benefit as well as the vampires'? Would you wear my ring, Ms. Stackhouse?"

So many questions.

"I suppose if I'm going to bear your technically-genetically-manifested child, they might as well not be a bastard. You're my vampire husband-" I almost choked on the word, illogically- "and I can put whatever I want on the birth certificate, as the mother. We could hyphenate," I suggested, then looked away, unable to meet his eyes. "And you know I've got simple taste in jewelry. White gold, please."

He pulled a tiny velvet box out from behind the couch cushion with a small frown. "Is platinum okay?" He opened the box and there were three rings nestled there; a simple, slim band with an intricate pattern that resembled waves, a basic engagement ring with a small, princess-cut diamond flanked by two sapphires, and a diamond solitaire that could only be described as a rock. The stone itself was easily the size of the end of my pinkie.

My eyes felt like they might pop out of my head. Without waiting for a response from me, he pulled each one out in turn and held them up, showing them off like a jeweler trying to make a tough sale.

"This is the wedding band," he said of the first ring. "The design is based on the rune Othila, repeating endlessly. My own ring shows it in greater detail. I haven't put it on, of course."

"And this is for you to wear when you are around your bar," he said, gesturing to the more modest set. "I thought you would appreciate a ring that would let you be less conspicuous when you work, since you enjoy doing so and don't want to quit." He frowned slightly at our old argument, seemingly unwilling to dwell on it.

"And this one, of course," he continued briskly, "is for when we are around vampires. It is somewhat ostentatious, but short of my marking you like a dog, I would like them to be reminded quite quickly of our bond and your status as my wife, and the harm that would befall them if they ever thought of touching you. It will help to protect you."

There were no words; they were all beautiful. All that stood in the way was my own stubborn streak, and when it came to Eric, by this time I'd gotten really good at telling that stubborn streak where to shove it. I kissed him and nodded, beyond words, and he slipped the first two rings onto my left-hand finger gently. Then he streaked off and reappeared within seconds, holding out a thick, almost comically wide band that matched my own, except for the fact that it was about three times as large. I took it between my fingers, feeling its weight, and then reached for his hand. He spread his fingers wide, and the band slipped into place on his hand, settling behind his knuckle as though it belonged there. I wondered how long he'd been planning this, but all thought fled my shell-shocked mind as he bent to envelop me in an embrace, suddenly placing rapid-fire kisses all over my face, shoulders, arms, fingers- anywhere my exposed skin would let him touch. I got rid of my shirt, he got rid of his, and before long, I found that we were consummating a wedding I'd walked into quite unexpectedly.

Huh. And I hadn't even worn white.

Hours later, in his sealed bedchamber just before dawn, I lamented this fact.

He turned to me, his fingertips touching the top of my diamond, and said, "Do you want to take them off and have a regular ceremony?"

I imagined the population of Bon Temps, the guest list long and nosy, gathered in Gran's garden as we stood under an arch heavy with night-blooming honeysuckle. I saw Pam and her new child Melissa- in my mind's eye, unmet, she looked a lot like Eric- standing holding tiger-lily bouquets, saw Jason giving my betrothed Viking a level stare as he walked me down an aisle of black velvet, knowing that Bill was somewhere in the woods watching the entire proceeding.

"No," I surprised myself. "I really don't. And I don't really want to have a vampire ceremony, either. The one I've been to was just plain odd."

"I agree. You're mine in their eyes already, anyway. To have a ceremony and call attention to the fact seems foolhardy. Though the vision of you in a white dress is pretty..." his voice trailed off. Without a further word, he grabbed his phone and typed a text so quickly his fingers were a blur; then he lay back down beside me with a little smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

He stared over the comforter at me, his eyes unreadable. Then he reached between us and put my palm in his own, spinning my wedding band. "You know, in my time, we didn't wear rings; they're a fairly modern invention. When we married, we went down to a big stone with a circle cut in it, spun around it a certain number of times, and kissed through the opening. Then we drank a lot of mead and had sex. It made things much simpler."

"It sounds like it," I said dreamily, picturing a young, carefree Eric spinning in circles with a different blonde, pretty, young- his first wife. It made me strangely happy. His voice interrupted the strange little thought.

"It's almost dawn. Good night, my lover, my wife."

"Mmmhmm," I said, maybe a little more sarcastically than was strictly necessary. "Nighty-night, hubby-wubby."

The light went out in the chamber when I flicked the switch, and after checking the alarm on my watch, I slipped into a few hours of sleep. I'd wake up in time to shower and make it back to Merlotte's for the brunch shift.


	4. Chapter 4

**White Picket Fence, Chapter 4: ****"****Shutter****"****  
><strong>

As the weeks passed and the calendar crept up on the date I'd circled, I grew more jittery and nervous. After the predictable upheaval around town regarding the new rings on my left hand, things had settled back down fairly quickly. Eric had been in my life in one capacity or another for a little over two years, and the little town of Bon Temps was used to seeing us together, so the latest development caused some titters, but not nearly as many as my original relationship with Bill. I'd told no one else aside from Sam about our next step, though. It was still deeply personal and until I was successfully pregnant, I didn't want to get everyone trying to mother-hen me, either. I was sure to get enough of that if I did end up knocked up.

Six days before the number I'd circled with a blue Sharpie, I went down to Wal-Mart and bought a dozen ovulation predictors and six pregnancy tests. I'd never had to buy one before, and I averted my eyes from the cashier as she passed them over the barcode scanner and told me my total. She was thinking about how her period was late and she needed to pick up one of her own, and how she was hungry, and how she hoped she wasn't pregnant because her son was only six months old and she didn't think she could handle another baby. My face barely registered in her mind. She was operating mostly on autopilot, which was fine for me.

I went into the bathroom at the store, pulled one of the ovulation predictors out of the bag, and tore open the box to read the directions. Feeling mildly grossed out, I held the stick about where I assumed it would need to be and attempted to aim at it. And then I proceeded to drop it in the toilet because my hands were shaking.

I used the toilet brush next to the bowl to fish the damned thing out, tossed it in the maxi pad disposable, and took myself straight home. Once there, I waited a couple of hours and then followed the directions differently, instead collecting the sample in a little plastic Dixie cup. Then I dipped the stick and left it on the counter while I tided up the bathroom, pretending that I didn't want to stare at the little plastic cassette as it developed.

After the longest three minutes in history, I snuck a glance at the result window. Just the test line was showing. My heart gave a sad little flop in my chest. Though I didn't expect anything else, it was still a little disheartening. I threw the negative result in the trash, and then set a daily alarm on my phone to remind me to take a test once a day. For the next four days, the process repeated itself. And then, on the fifth day, I glanced down as I brushed my hair, and there was a tiny, faint line. My chest seemed to fill with pressure, and I found myself smiling. Then I took a picture of the result and texted it to Eric. He replied with a smiley face followed by "See you tomorrow night."

I had the next day off, so I got up at 4 in the afternoon, ate some pancakes, and took my test. This time the second line slowed up strong and clear right next to the control line, and I could feel how wide my eyes got. I grinned despite myself, took another picture, and went to toss the test- then found myself wrapping it in a tissue instead, and tucking it away in an unused drawer. It was kind of gross, but I couldn't bear to toss this little sign of success away just yet.

The drive to Shreveport seemed unbearably long. Just when I thought I'd never get there, Eric's driveway came into my car's headlights and I parked in my usual spot. I slipped into his house and straight into his arms. He closed his eyes and kissed my forehead, then sniffed at me playfully.

"Well, you smell fertile."

I decided not to touch that one with a ten foot pole. "So, where's the... stuff?" I asked, curious.

"Oh, so you are here just for the sperm, not to see your loving husband?" he teased. He tented his fingers together under my butt and pulled me up, my legs wrapping around his waist as he lifted me and we sped through into the kitchen. To my great surprise, a flash went off and I stared, starry-eyed, at Pam, who was holding up a small, bright pink digital camera. Beside her stood a slim, dark-haired girl who I assumed must be Melissa. I was a bit shocked, because the girl was clearly Japanese. And here I'd wondered if we'd have yet another blonde hanging around... Pam smiled at me as I looked at her over Eric's shoulder.

"Hi," I said, not knowing quite what else to say.

"Hello, Sookie. Melissa, this is Eric's wife. You will treat her with the same respect that you afford my maker."

Melissa seemed anxious to meet my eyes as she looked up shyly. I pulled my hands off Eric's neck and he let me down, and I crossed the small room with my palm extended to her. Since she was newly turned, she placed her cool hand in mine and we shook. She was tall and very thin, oddly elegant; she reminded me of a ballerina. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and it was so black it looked blue. Her eyes were wide and dark, as well. She seemed to analyze me for a long moment, and then looked into my face.

"My mom's from northern Japan. She met my Dad on a business trip to London. Let's get the stereotypes out of the way, shall we? I don't like manga, I don't sing karaoke, I don't know any ninjas and I can't tell you what the kanji of your tattoo really means." Direct and to the point. She was Pam's child, all right.

"What about sushi?" I wondered, and she barked a melodic laugh and then stepped back, returning to Pam's side. "I didn't know you even owned a camera, Pam," I continued, searching for a new subject.

"Oh, I didn't," she replied lightly. "But this seemed a fitting occasion to document. A real, live, breathing, pregnant human! Well, part-human. This is going to be exciting. We must have a baby shower, being as you cheated me out of throwing you a wedding shower." She sounded legitimately put-out about the fact, and I had to keep my own laugh in check.

She snapped another photo before I could blink. "These will have to go at the beginning of the album. You can look back at them when you're bloated and miserable eight months from now, and see how nice your body looked," she said gleefully, firing off another half-dozen clicks of the shutter. Eric threw his arm around my shoulder and posed, and I leaned against his far-larger frame. I wondered what expressions he was putting on.

After a few moments of this, Pam reached out, snatched Melissa by the hand, and called "Goodbye!" in a hurried tone as they strode out into the night. I turned and looked up in Eric's face for an explanation and found it quick as lightning. Though I'd felt his rising arousal, evidently he'd sent Pam a mental text-message to get out while we got down to business. He leaned down and gave me a butterfly-soft kiss to the lips, then asked, "Shall we?"

I nodded, mute with desire tinged with nervousness. He took my hand- such a human gesture- and pulled me along like a little boy excited to show off his newest pet frog or science fair project. We'd just barely shut ourselves into the chamber when his cell phone went off.

Instantly his gentle good-humor vanished, and I was reminded that the side of Eric he indulged with me was one very different from the polished, ruthless, and efficient Sheriff of Area 5. He had a clipped conversation, then shut his phone off and tossed it on the bedside table. He looked at me and his entire body- and his blood- relaxed. It was a relief, because the tension that had been broiling through him moments earlier had my adrenaline racing for fight or flight; I'd been absently twitching my feet and pulling at the hem of my shirt, and my fingers were still fretting at an errant thread. He let his frame fall onto the mattress and bounced, once, before taking my palm in his own and meeting my eyes.

"Bookkeeping issues at the club. Evidently we have another thief in our midst. Next week, would you assist me?"

"Of course," I said, a little bit pleased that he still felt he needed to ask. It was a sign of respect that I didn't want to let go unnoticed, and I knew just how to let him know it hadn't.

"Whoa," he laughed softly as I drifted down his chest with my tongue. Somehow he'd lost his shirt as soon as he saw the look in my eyes. Clever man. "It's been a while, admittedly, but I am quite sure that's not how one makes babies."

The actual process itself wasn't too different from what we usually shared, and with the exception of his lightning-fast reappearance with 'the stuff' I wouldn't have said I felt anything any more spectacular than usual.

He pulled himself close around me, surrounding me with his body and letting his hands slip through my hair. Then he reached up and lifted my hind end in the air. I was too shocked to be annoyed as he held my body up at a 45 degree angle quite effortlessly.

"We have to elevate your hips for a couple of hours," he said wickedly. At my pointed stare of surprise mingled with disdain, he added, "What? I have Google, too. I did some research."

Deep down, I was happy he was so involved and seemed as excited as I was. Even if all the blood was now rapidly rushing to my head, and my ankles were tingling. We stayed that way for a long, long time, Eric feeling the need from time to time to keep me elevated while doing... other, happy, things. When I finally told him I was about to be a puddle on the carpet if he kept it up, his eyebrow shot up.

Again, he was defensive.

"The more orgasms you have, the better chance of conception. That's just scientific fact, lover."

He let up after a while, and I fell asleep in as normal a position as ever. A few hours of rest later, I woke up alone and assumed he'd gone to sleep elsewhere in the house to leave the bed warm while I slept. I gathered my legs beneath me and stood up- and immediately felt something I'd heard about but never actually experienced- the morning-after sticky walk of yuck. After all, I'd only been with vampires without a condom, and their... residue... wasn't anything like this. Gross.

I managed to shower and felt a thousand times better by the time I made it into the little kitchen to glance at a clock. Holy S. It was three in the afternoon.

I heated up a pint of chicken chow mein from his freezer- wondering if Pam had put it there- and then went into his library with my takeout container, a fork, and a glass of water. I walked the shelves until I found something in English- an anthology of Shakespeare, actually- and settled myself into a chair to wait for nightfall.


End file.
